Posts Tagged midst

One of China’s papers reported that Apple had illegally sold books of some Chinese authors and was ordered to pay a certain amount. Apple was sued by a group of Chinese authors over copyright infringement after the group discovered that their books were sold without permission in Apple’s App Store. A judge based in Beijing demanded that Apple pay the authors to compensate for their claims.

It is not immediately clear how the writers will be paid though. The China Daily said that Apple was ordered to pay a total of 412, 000 yuan, translating to $66,000, while the Wall Street Journal writes that the Cupertino-based firm was told to pay 1.03 million yuan, or around $165,000.

Mac Observer noted that pirates sold the books to Apple without seeking permission from the writers themselves. The authors involved are among China’s best sellers and most popular.

Wall Street Journal reported that Apple does not tolerate piracy and that the company ensures that the rights of content owners like writers and authors are upheld all the time.

The ruling happens in the midst of the China’s crackdown of massive piracy and trademark issues in the country. Chinese government officials announced last Monday that laws will be amended to address “malicious” trademark registrations that encourages local businesses to misuse popular names and brands in the country. The changes in the law would give more power to trademark owners, which would allow them to request for product bans if their logos and names are used without permission.

Apple had been hit by lawsuits from China a few times already. The first lawsuit was from Proview, when the China-based company sued the American tech giant over the iPad trademark. Apple had to settle for $60 million over the case after Proview filed numerous lawsuits in China requesting to ban Apple’s tablet from stores, as well as order Apple from using the iPad trademark on its widely popular line of products. Following that case was another lawsuit from Jiangsu Xuebao, which claimed that Apple infringed on its “Snow Leopard” trademark. The most desirable company in the world was also accused of patent infringement issues over its Siri voice technology and Facetime software.

Last September, Apple was also ordered to pay 520,000 yuan to Chinese encyclopedia publisher for violating copyright.

The latest lawsuit involving Apple’s App Store was filed earlier in the year and was entertained by the court in October. The judge’s ruling ordered Apple to stop the distribution of the books immediately. China Daily hinted that the authors involved in the case may appeal the ruling because of the low compensation fee being ordered.

The group originally asked for 10 million yuan in damages claims, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua.

China is becoming a significant market for Apple as its products are well received by the country’s middle class.

The company’s China sales was reportedly $5.7 billion for the fiscal quarter that ended last September, translating to about 16 percent of the company’s total global sales.

Even in the best of photographic circumstances there are some shots that are just hard to capture – and when all you have is your iPhone, those shots are practically impossible. Whether it’s a picture of a dog at a full run or one of your favorite little tumbler in the midst of a back handspring – pretty much any action shot is difficult to capture with a phone camera without a big blurry image. This is where Perfect Pic comes in. A universal app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Perfect Pic imports videos, has the ability to slow them down and then basically capture them in individual frames. The result is a quick and easy way to turn video clips into the ideal still shot.

To get started with Perfect Pic, simply launch the app and allow access to your library camera roll. All videos will be automatically imported but you can also opt to record a new video from within the app. With your chosen video selected, simply select a playback speed and then tap the pause button when you are near a point in the video where you’d like to capture the still shot. It really is that easy. (more…)

The iPad Mini is certainly not the best budget tablet out there. The hardware specs of the tablet haven’t won a lot of fans and rightly so. Of late, people have come to expect a lot from Apple and the company certainly lived down to it. Yes, it’s bigger than most of its budget tablet competition, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, right? The main gripe that people have about the device is its unflattering display resolution. But in the midst of all this, we almost tend to neglect the fact that Apple also upgraded the full sized iPad along with the iPad Mini. And now, reports are suggesting that the full sized iPad could be seeing another refresh in March. Yes that’s a refresh in a matter of six months, something which Apple is not known to do. These reports further claim that the new iPad could go through some redesigning and bear resemblance to the iPad Mini and the new iPhone 5 (White and Silver, Black and Slate color combinations).It is believed that the new iPad could also be a touch thinner from older iterations, which could well mean that Apple has finally figured out a way to fit in a Retina Display that big without adding to the thickness of the device.

There’s no info on whether Apple would refresh the iPad Mini along with it, but it seems plausible especially considering how badly Apple wants to change the game with its offerings before Android manufacturers roll out better products for a smaller price tag. This, for the owners of the iPad Mini or the fourth gen iPad, will be a nightmare as Apple would be shying away from its standard 1 year update cycle. There’s still no confirmation of course, which is why we recommend you take this with a pinch of salt for now. Other reports are claiming that Apple could upgrade the iPad Mini with the A6X chip, the same one seen on the current iteration of the full sized iPad. There’s no way to make sure until March, but we have to say this might be the best thing to do for Apple as waiting for a full year might set the company back by a few notches.

Whatever the final outcome, Apple will certainly have to rethink the whole iPad strategy now, especially with the iPad Mini. Hardware upgrades are certainly the way to go, although the problem for Apple will arise when it comes to cost cutting. Which is why the iPad Mini isn’t a smaller version of the full sized iPad but a downgraded version of it. Price will be key in a competitive market, and let’s see if Apple has what it takes.

Parachute pants, big hair and pastel sport coats might not be the height of fashion these days, but ten years ago gamers were in the midst of a digital revival. Grand Theft Auto Vice City rode on the massive (and well-deserved) success of GTAIII with a fresh setting, a more character-driven story and a refined sandbox world that makes it a series favorite even today. Those who want to relive the glory days of the 1980s (and 2002) can download the game on Google Play for just five bucks.

Does Vice City live up to expectations? Well, yes and no. The technical aspects of the game, and Rockstar’s ambitious commitment to the sandbox style, haven’t aged well.

Japanese mobile service provider Softbank announced today that it will sell satellite phones that can be used during tsunamis, earthquakes, or other events during which traditional mobile phone service may be unavailable. The carrier has partnered with Dubai-based Thuraya, a satellite phone and service provider, to sell satellite-based phones to its home market. Softbank, which is in the midst of a $20.1 billion acquisition of US carrier Sprint, has been slower than other Japanese carriers to restore critical mobile services after natural disaster-caused outages. Satellite phone sales will primarily target essential services such as government officials, energy providers, and local media, though private citizens will be able to buy the phones through retail outlets in order to stay connected during critical events. No word yet on price, though Japanese consumers can expect these phones on the market by February.

The LG Optimus 2X brags of being the world’s first dual core smartphone, it even has a Guinness Record to its name for that. You would generally expect a smartphone of its stature to be regarded highly by the company despite its initial hiccups and eventual demise. The problem about being first at something is that there’s always room for a newer smartphone to come in and do what this does better. That’s exactly what happened with the 2X as shortly after its launch, HTC launched the Sensation and Samsung launched the Galaxy S II, both being top sellers for the respective companies. And in the midst of all this, the Optimus 2X lost its demand.

Another major reason for the downfall of this ex-flagship was the lack of timely updates by LG. The company struggled to roll out the Android 2.3 update to the handset, and then it shied away completely from providing the Android 4.0 update to the device. But shortly after a slur of criticisms from the users, LG decided to rethink its strategy and finally decided to roll out the update to Optimus 2X smartphones. It has been quite a while since all that happened, and the company has now finally started rolling out the update for the smartphone.

The Optimus 2X smartphones in Europe should now see the update hitting their smartphone, which should substantially increase performance. Although one might claim it’s a little too late to be getting Ice Cream Sandwich, the users will welcome it with open arms as the device currently runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Korean owners of the Optimus 2X though have already received the update a few months ago. This new update will bring along the new LG launcher as well, so overall performance should be improved. Ice Cream Sandwich is the OS which started making full use of multi core chipsets, and with Jelly Bean it has gotten even better.

We don’t see why it’s not possible for LG to roll out the Jelly Bean update as well, but I’m guessing LG just wanted to get the fans out of its back, so this should be curtains for the Optimus 2X. It is hoped that the company has learnt some lessons from its past and won’t repeat the same mistakes with the Optimus 4X HD or the Optimus G. With the company working in close quarters with Google with the Nexus 4 now, we can expect improved support for LG made smartphones. LG needs to regain the faith of its customers, and if it is able to do that, then there’s no doubt that the sales will keep increasing.

Reports from the Far East starting to emerge are suggesting that Google is looking to further expand its Chrome OS device portfolio with an own-brand offering in Q1 2013. A report in the China Times claims that Google has approached Taiwanese manufacturers Compal Electronics and Wintek to handle the hardware. The kicker — this Google branded Chromebook is said to be a 12.85-inch device with a touch based input.

Google is of course in the midst of another round of Chromebook pushing at the moment, with low-cost offerings currently on the market from both Acer and Samsung. The reports of touch input are interesting, especially considering Google's recent push into the tablet space with both the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10. A touch based Chromebook would offer a different experience to an Android tablet. It could be seen more as a move to compete not against Google's own products, but more so against the likes of the Microsoft Surface and the other Windows 8 based touch-input laptops and tablets.

Touch input alone may not be enough to increase adoption of Google's cloud based OS, but price could have a much bigger effect. We've seen with the recent launches of the Nexus 4, 7 and 10 that Google is capable of offering a premium experience at an attractive price point. If Google were to offer an own-brand Chromebook, sold exclusively through the Play Store, margins could be stretched as thin as they wanted with a potential for an attractive price for consumers.

The Nexus 4 is the new lady in town with every potential Android user trying to get his/her hands on it. Although Google’s launching of the device was plagued by certain issues, the demand for the device has certainly not gone down. Importers in various countries of Europe and Asia are selling the device at a premium price tag, which certainly isn’t a problem for the buyers. However, in the midst of all those premium priced devices, it’s hard to find a good deal anywhere. But Daily Steals has one now on the 16GB version of the LG Nexus 4. The device is being sold for $499, which is what the device goes for off-contract on T-Mobile’s shelves. It isn’t exactly the same price as Google offered in its launch a couple of weeks ago, but it’s not all that bad either considering that some retailers on eBay are even selling it for north of $1000.

It must be noted though that Daily Steals only has this offer for a very limited period, so it would make sense to order the device immediately if you’re interested. The deal closes at midnight today (EST). It is believed that Daily Steals takes up to six business days to ship the order, and in some cases it would take a few weeks post the shipping to reach the customer. Customers in the past have had some complaints with Daily Steals, but if you’re desperate enough to get the smartphone irrespective of the waiting period, this is a deal you can’t miss. The Nexus 4 on the Play Store still remains sold out, and there’s no word on when exactly it will be back in stock again, although it was initially reported that it would take a couple of weeks to get it back in stock.

The Nexus 4 is the grand daddy of all Android smartphones right now and one of the most desired too. Price is a huge selling point for the device and if you don’t mind paying the extra $150 compared to Google’s pricing, it’s not a bad deal at all. Bear in mind, the phone is unlocked and can be used with any carrier. Does it sound like an appealing offer? Or would you rather wait for Google’s re-stocking of the device on the Play Store? We recommend you go with the latter option, as there is less risk involved there. In the meantime, you can bask in the glory of what’s to come in the world of Android instead of keeping yourself glued to the Play Store page and that F5 button.

After Google’s LG-manufactured Nexus 4 went live on the Play Store, it was only minutes before it was sold out. That wasn’t the case for T-Mobile though, as it’s taken them a bit longer to see the new device go out of stock. T-Mobile has been selling the Nexus 4 for $199 with a new two-year contract on their 42Mbps HSPA+ network. T-Mobile hasn’t said when they will have more Nexus 4 devices available, but given the difficulties that Google has had with the Nexus 4, we could be waiting for a couple of weeks before we see anything. After all, Google did say that they would have more available in the coming weeks. So unless T-Mobile has a trick up their sleeve, we’re going to be waiting a while before seeing more Nexus 4′s.

As you know, the demand for this smartphone has been extremely high, which has resulted in the Nexus 4 selling out on Google Play in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States. As mentioned above, Google has said that they expect more stock available in “the coming weeks.” In the midst of that, customers who managed to order a Nexus 4 were told that they would be waiting up to three weeks before the device would ship. This hasn’t been Google’s best launch, but hopefully things will be getting sorted out fairly soon here.

Are you waiting for T-Mobile or the Play Store to get more stock or have you given up on Google with this one and are looking at another device?

As manic as LTE adoption has been in the US, it could be triggering a full-fledged generational rift in Japan. NTT is cutting prices for fiber-to-the-home internet access by as much as 34 percent in the midst of falling landline subscriptions, and Australia’s Delimiter hears from unofficial sources at the provider that the cuts may be in response to youth being enamored with 4G on their phones. The tipsters believe that many of the younger set are picking one expensive LTE plan, even with data caps, instead of paying for two services; a price drop would be an attempt to keep at least a few of these wireless rebels onboard. Take the assertions with a grain of salt when there’s no official statements to match, but there’s no doubt that 4G demand is booming when NTT’s own DoCoMo just landed its 7 millionth Xi contract. We only wish American wired and wireless carriers would be so accommodating of our temptation to cut the cord.

In the midst of all the multi core smartphones that we see around us, it’s easy to forget about the low key smartphones that arrive in the market. With smartphones being so attractively priced these days, the feature phones or the rather lower spec’d phones are almost nonexistent to a lot of us. And Sony has made one such phone available in the U.S now, in the form of the Xperia advance. As with most entry level smartphones, this one too has a unique USP and that is its ruggedness. The phone is dust and water proof (up to 1 meter for 30 minutes) with IP67 certification, so this one is here to stay. The phone is known as the Xperia go in other parts of the world, and Xperia advance is merely an alternative name for the device. What’s interesting though is that Sony has launched this phone a good four months after its official release worldwide, which makes us feel if this is a holiday season special. Regardless, it’s a nice addition to the already crowded smartphone market albeit in a small package.

The smartphone features a 3.5-inch LED backlit LCD display with a resolution of 320×480 pixels and is powered by the Sony Mobile Bravia Engine. The rest of the specs are pretty standard with a 5MP camera, 8GB native storage (4GB user accessible) and a 1,305 mAh battery pack. Powering the device is a 1 GHz dual core NovaThor U8500 chip, with Mali 400 graphics. Sadly though, the phone runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which in this day and age is pretty substandard, but Sony is planning an upgrade to Android 4.0 soon like most of its Xperia lineup. The phone will be launched unlocked and free from contractual obligations and is compatible with AT&T’s HSPA+ networks, so you have the liberty to pick your favorite carrier. Gifting one of these to your family members isn’t a bad idea at all as it is priced at $249. Yes, in comparison to most other entry level smartphones, this one here is a little pricey, but given its water/dust proof credentials, it doesn’t seem like much. Besides the ruggedness of the device, it’s also pretty small and compact to hold. At 9.8mm, it’s not the thinnest, but is pretty much up there with the rest of the gang. It would make sense to keep this as a backup phone for your hiking trips where ruggedness would very much come in handy. The phone is available for purchase over at Newegg and Amazon.

If you are aniMessage, iCloud, Face Time, or Game Centre user, you would have experienced the outage a few times in the last month, and the last week as well. There have been two outages recently, which have left the users very frustrated. The Cupertino tech giant is not having a good time after it released the iOS 6 operating system. First it was it with the new Maps apps, and now the iMessages, Face Time, and Game Centre. Wired puts forward a couple of the tweets from iMessage users:

“I hate when my iMessage decides to not work and my texts send as actual text messages #annoying,” disgruntled user @KellyTurner tweeted last week. Another user, @adamtheteen, echoed that sentiment in the midst of the second bout of iMessage downtime this week: “I hate when iMessage just randomly stops working.”

According to Apple’s latest stats, there are 140 million iMessage users worldwide, and they are sending 28,000 iMessages every second. That is very clearly a very big number, and the company needs to have enough infrastructure to support such cloud service. On October 25th, Face Time and iMessages were down, leaving users angered. Again, Tuesday afternoon, most of the iCloud services were down, including iMessage, Face Time, and Game Centre. Users were obviously very enraged. Gartner analyst Brian Blau told the following to Wired via email:

While I don’t believe these are serious, it’s not typical of Apple to have these types of system issues. You would expect that Apple would address the problems immediately, and if we see more outages, then Apple should at least let users know the source of the problems.

Wireless carriers are helpless in resolving these issues. Wired says that both AT&T and Verizon referred to Apple when it asked about these outages. And Apple usually does not address such issues. Apple really needs to fix a lot of issues pertaining to its iOS 6 based services, for its customers to be happy to pay again next year for the new piece of hardware it will release.

The past couple of weeks we have been seeing a lot of different rumors and leaks about a 32GB Nexus 7 along with a few hints concerning a Nexus 7 with 3G cellular data capabilities. Today we have seen that a 32GB Nexus 7 has been unveiled after weeks of constant rumors. In the midst of that announcement, a nice little surprise that Google unveiled was the highly anticipated Nexus 7 with 3G and HSPA+ cellular data capabilities. It is compatible with many networks worldwide, but some of the most notable ones are AT&T in the United States and Three UK in Britain. The Nexus 7 with HSPA+ capabilities also comes with 32GBs of storage. Beyond that, there are no other storage options for the Nexus 7 with cellular data.

The United States variant of the 32GB Nexus 7 with HSPA+ capabilities is going to set you back by $299 and will be working on AT&T’s network. Of course, you could just save yourself $50 and get the Wi-Fi only version of the 32GB tablet. The United Kingdom variant will be set at £199 later today.

If you live in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Canada or even Spain, you will be able to purchase Google’s unlocked devices straight from their Play Store when November 13th comes around the corner. Until then, you will just have to sit back and wait.

Are you going to be getting a 3G HSPA+ Nexus 7 with 32GBs of storage? Would you attempt to use this bad boy as a smartphone now too?

The patent war between Apple and Samsung seems to never end. Even though Apple gets display units for its iPhones from Samsung, it did not hesitate to sue the South Korean tech giant for what seems like an infringement of patents. And Samsung did fight back, but its efforts seem to have been going down the drain without any sizable results. In the midst of this, there was a rumor that Samsung stopped supplying Apple the display units that we find on almost all of the iPhones in the market. Apple now gets a few of those displays from other display manufacturers such as Sharp and LG.

But today, the South Korean Android smart phone giant has replied to this report that it has not stopped the supply and is still supplying the displays to the Cupertino tech giant. The report was first published in The Korea Times. A spokesperson from Samsung has stated that “Samsung Display has never tried to cut the supply for LCD panels to Apple.”

The report that The Korea Times refers to have said that the South Korean company was unable to supply the display units as Apple had tightened the quality control requirements on the displays, and also because the discount that Samsung gives Apple on these display units were too much for Samsung to bear. Electronista writes:

“The source claimed that the company is no longer able to supply screens to Apple at a steep discount, as Apple’s strict quality control requirements such as those plaguing the iPhone 5 construction lower the financial attractiveness to Samsung of providing the iPhone maker with displays.”

In the third quarter, Samsung has reportedly shipped only three million display units to the iPhone maker. And for this quarter, the South Korean company is expected to ship less than one and half million of these display units. Also, reports say that the displays on the upcoming iPad Mini are not manufactured by Samsung.

But as already stated, the Cupertino tech giant has already started to buy displays from Sharp and LG. And there is also the news that the company might cut off Samsung as the manufacturer for its chips and look for some other worthy manufacturer.

I guess it’s that time of the year again when we get mixed up in the midst of so many device launches. We have the Windows Phone 8 devices launching and more importantly the next Nexus smartphone (possibly along with the new version of Android), so it’s obvious that people would be a tad confused. But LG has just launched two new Windows 8 tablets in the form of the H160 and the V325 all-in-one, with the former featuring a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Before we go into detail about the specs of the tablet, it is important to point out that both these devices will first break cover in LG’s home turf South Korea on the 26th of this month, with sadly no mention of global availability. But LG would want to market it at a wider scale as there is a bigger market for tablets like these outside of Korea. The processors onboard the tablets are based on the x86 architecture. The H160 is believed to be compatible with LG’s Smart Pen, while it’s not clear if the V325 is compatible too.

It seems imminent that tablets like these would start rolling out by a range of manufacturers, and LG certainly wants to stand out from the crowd. The H160 has a form factor we don’t see often (in tablets at least) with its slide out full sized QWERTY keyboard hidden beneath the 11.6-inch IPS touchscreen display. The best part, however, is that unlike most other slide out QWERTY keyboard devices, this one is accessible with the press of a button which adds to the overall appeal of the device. The durability of the device though will be tested when it is rolled out in the market. LG promises battery life of 10 hours, which seems awesome for a tablet, but there’s no proof to substantiate those claims. It features an HDMI port as well as a full sized USB port for media connectivity and extra storage options. It also packs a microSD card slot for internal memory expansion. At a mere 15.5mm thick, the tablet is pretty slim given the fact that it hides a QWERTY keyboard inside.

The V325 All-In-One however comes with a huge 23-inch multitouch touchscreen with a Full HD display resolution (1920×1080), so those extra pixels will matter for the huge display. With a pixel density of 96ppi, it’s not groundbreaking especially since the market has plenty of Full HD monitors. But the fact that it is also a multitouch touchscreen will be a major selling point. Needless to say, this will be used more as a desktop rather than a portable device. It hasn’t been mentioned if the keyboard and the mouse shown in the picture will be supplied with the device. It appears to be more of an iMac replacement, to be honest. The V325 packs a TV tuner card which will be activated when the unit is turned off. It runs on the Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 chip with NVIDIA GeForce GT640M GPU graphics processor. So it seems like LG has covered all its bases with these tablets/notebooks. The H160 in particular has caught our eye and if LG plans to launch it globally, we can see it selling fairly well as an alternative to Intel’s ultrabooks.

I’d say that the average tech blog gets a lot of daily traffic, anything from 100,000+ people to 50 million people. That’s a lot, don’t you think? Well, that was easily attainable by former Megaupload founder, Kim DotCom, as he achieved a very substantial goal with his service. Kim Dotcom has had some various legal issues and protests from the anti-piracy supporters, but even in the midst of that, Dotcom is very eager to create his brand new Megabox applications, which could possibly change the entirety of the music industry.

What does this Megabox service do, that makes it so widely known and “important” though? Just a couple of months ago, Kim Dotcom had released a statement on Twitter, describing that his new Megabox application would allow users of it to easily distribute media, and especially music, freely. Earlier this week on Tuesday, he had said that his idea will, “Turn this world upside down,” and that the service will be, “Bigger. Better. Faster. Free of charge & shielded from any attacks.”

Of course, this may not be entirely true, but it is obviously no secret since the Federal Government got hold of the initial Megabox domain, Dotcom surely has something up his sleeve though. His confidence continues to loom high, but he has ensured his supporters that this new application will become available as a multi-platform tool on Android, iOS and PC. Kim Dotcom’s various statements on all of this may be a tad “far-fetched,” but this computer guru really has plans to get this software finished and published by late 2012. I’m not sure the law enforcement is going to be a big problem for him anymore. According to his lawyers and copyright law, he’s not really breaking any rules of the game. What’s going to be the issue, is getting software on the devices, because we may see Google black something like Megabox, and likewise with Apple. There is no way I can imagine Google or Apple letting this type of software on their platform, especially if it also takes a direct hit on their sales figures (due to downloading things from Megabox as opposed to Google Music).

I’m not entirely sure what I think about Megabox as of now. It seems like just another way to rebel against the Federal Government after completely taking down Dotcom’s Megaupload website. On the other hand, an interview that was conducted with Dotcom, he claimed that he was not at fault according to United States law, and it was actually people uploading to Megaupload that were at fault. All Dotcom did was offer a bunch of free bandwidth. It seems weird, but Dotcom has a very good knowledge of United States copyright law, and so do his lawyers. Who knows though? Maybe megabox will turn out to be a huge success.

Anyone curious as to what this could bring to Dotcom in the future? More Federal Government raids? Lawsuits? Let us know in the comments below, surely we have some copyright law geniuses out there!

Ah, we must be in the midst of a lull in Samsung’s release schedule when the whole world waits with bated breath for the announcement of a phone like the Samsung Galaxy Music. By all means and entry-level device with its 850MHz processor, 3-inch QVGA display, and 512MB of RAM, the Music doesn’t hold a candle to flagship releases like the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2. It does however, feature a set of stereo external speakers, as evidenced by the visually thumping bass emerging in the leaked image of the device below.

Other specs include 4GB of internal storage plus microSD expansion, a 3MP camera, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (a Jelly Bean update is already planned). A second version of the device, the Samsung Galaxy Music DUOS, will feature dual-SIM support with the rest of the specs remaining identical. Samsung is expected to announce the pair at a press event in Frankfurt on October 11th.

In the midst of the whole Samsung Galaxy S III mayhem and pandemonium, it’s never to early to think about the next follow-up of the Galaxy S series, right? Well, a few individuals connected to the Korean giant seem to think so. According to the Korea Times, the Galaxy S IV smartphone will be revealed at Mobile World Congress for 2013 and be on sale in stores by March. The Korea Times also highlights the device will grow in size, as an OLED display will come in at 5-inches and feature LTE. The end goal of this new smartphone will be to send a “clear message” to Apple, while ushering in a new era of smartphones.

Naturally, we’ll take this one with a grain of salt— but then again, it’s never to early to get in on the hype of Sammy’s next big thing.

While today might be the day we hear about the new iPhone, Samsung Mobile head JK Shin is attempting to make some news of his own with his latest comments to the Korean Press in the midst of the iPhone fad. Speaking to the Korean news agency Yonhap, Shin had indicated that he is expecting the company’s flagship handset, the Galaxy S III, currently sitting at a whopping 20 million units sold, to hit the 30 million mark before we reach the end of the year pretty soon here. They may even hit some larger figures depending on how this month goes. Such a figure would be unheard of for any single Samsung smartphone ever. The Galaxy S II hit the 20 million mark earlier this year, so it would make sense that the Samsung Galaxy S III would blow that one out of the water.

Shin also told Yonhap that the recently announced Galaxy Note 2 is expected to shift twice as many units as the original Galaxy Note, though this one seems to be a pretty long-term target as opposed to a target to reach in the next three and a half months. The original Galaxy Note managed to sell 10 million units worldwide, it seems as if Shin is looking to aim for 20 million with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 2. I have no doubts that the handset will be selling 20 million units though, Samsung has already proved that they were able to do that with the Samsung Galaxy S III.

With Samsung phones in general, with the Samsung Galaxy S III specifically, handsets are just continuing to fly off store shelves. It seems to have increased after the Apple vs Samsung legal battle verdict, but with that said, there is no doubt that Samsung won’t be hitting their goals this year. Of course, we could be wrong as it will be facing some stronger competition than it has had over the next quarter. Apple is announcing their new iPhone today, so who knows how much that will put up against Samsung. We’re guessing that with the recent outrage that they won’t be hitting any sort of record sales, especially with people beginning to move away from their iPhone’s and pick up a Samsung phone.

Samsung has a lot of phones still on the way into the market, so there’s no doubt with them being more cheaper and affordable that the iPhone might have trouble selling well. Of course, due to the popularity of the iPhone it will get some pretty good sales, but I doubt we will be seeing any record breaking sales news. Maybe I’m wrong though. I hope not as it would really be a terrible day for Samsung to not reach their goal this year.

Not sure if you want to splurge for that newfangled iPhone 5 just yet? Well, the folks in Cupertino are now offering a handsome discount on the previous model. That’s right, the iPhone 4S will now set you back $99 (with a requisite agreement, of course) and the iPhone 4 is free on contract. In the midst of the all the excitement, Apple also announced that the 3GS will be discontinued.

Check out our liveblog of Apple’s event to get the latest news as it happens!

Not sure if you want to splurge for that newfangled iPhone 5 just yet? Well, the folks in Cupertino are now offering a handsome discount on the previous model. That’s right, the iPhone 4S will now set you back $99 (with a requisite agreement, of course) and the iPhone 4 is free on contract. In the midst of the all the excitement, Apple also announced that the 3GS will be discontinued.

Check out our liveblog of Apple’s event to get the latest news as it happens!

We’re hoping for big news from UK carrier partnership Everything Everywhere over the next couple of months — not just the first real LTE service in the British Isles (as if that wasn’t enough), but also new handsets to put that bandwidth to use. According to the Financial Times, the conglomerate is now in talks with Nokia to make that happen, with the LTE-sporting Lumia 920 standing to become an Everything Everywhere exclusive if the negotiations end happily. There’s nothing official to confirm it at this point, but Nokia struggled to win over some carriers with its last batch of Lumias and has now made it clear that it’s open to alternative strategies, just as it already has a special relationship with AT&T in the States. Of course, by the time the Lumia 920 reaches the UK — likely in early November — there could well be another honest-to-goodness 4G superphone in its midst.

Of course not every 2011 phone will cooperate with Jelly Bean, so MOTO has you covered as well. If it decides that your 2011 device will perform at an unacceptable level with newer software and decides not to upgrade to Jelly Bean, MOTO will offer a $100 trade-in credit for you to use towards a new device. Before you ask— the credit is only good towards new Motorola devices, so you can’t pull a fast one and try to score that HTC or Samsung phone you’ve been itching for. Such is life we suppose.

More details about the Samsung Galaxy Stellar 4G LTE, Verizon’s upcoming budget offering, are now surfacing from the midst of the carrier’s internal systems. Our source has confirmed that the Stellar is now expected to launch on September 6th, and has provided some documentation that reveals the vast majority of the phone’s spec sheet. Starter Mode once again gets mentioned here — according to the docs, it’s a “new, simple way to interact Access apps and control device settings with ease.” As far as specs go, these docs back up the details leaked on Best Buy’s website earlier: Android 4.0, a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, 3.2MP rear camera and 1.3MP front-facing cam and 800 x 480 WVGA display. Additionally, Amazon Kindle, Audible and Zappos apps are mentioned, as well as Bluetooth 4.0 and 4GB internal storage. Dimensionally, the phone will weigh 4.73 ounces and measures 121.92 x 63.75 x 11.94mm (yes, that last measurement is for thickness). Given the lower-end specs, the Stellar likely won’t launch to a grand amount of fanfare — especially if the $100 price point is accurate. Check out our gallery below to see a few more images of the crucial docs.

As a sidenote, many of the images will have creatively blurred-out sections in order to protect the identity of our source.

A couple weeks back we saw the Motorola Droid 4 in the midst of it's soak test procedure for Ice Cream Sandwich, and today it appears that the update is pushing, at least for a few. Officially, the support page lists the update as "coming soon", but we've gotten a report or two that it's already inbound. We'll go over the changes in a bit, but it's worth mentioning that the build of Blur (or not Blur) has been updated to the same version we saw in the RAZR's Ice Cream Sandwich update. We like it when things get refined, so we're not complaining, but if you get a bit lost with the new look and feel hit the forums for some help. Moving on to the details –

Device is enabled for Global Roaming.

Integration of new version of Backup Assistant Plus.

Mobile IM has been removed.

Color for Facebook application is preloaded.

Enhanced Customer Support with Verizon Remote Diagnostics.

Improved Stability and connectivity with Email.

Successfully download and save ringtones.

Mobile Hotspot – Improved connectivity.

Reduced device resets and power cycling.

Camera quality has been improved for better pictures.

Improved My Gallery performance.

Voice Mail Notification shows the correct of unread messages.

Updated Mobile Hotspots Icon.

Visual Voice Mail shortcut on home screen changed to a standard voicemail shortcut.

Clear Contact pictures are displayed for phonebook contacts.

The version number is now 6.16.217.XT894.Verizon.en.US, and the update checks in at about in at 360MB. We're not sure how widespread the rollout is just yet, but to check if you have it ready and waiting hit the settings and look in About phone > system update. When you see it, be sure to sound off and let folks know how it went for you. Hit the source link below for the full details as well as detailed update instructions.

The blame game of patents between Apple and Samsung is fast becoming the stuff of legends, with global courts deciding claims and counter claims between the two on a regular basis, so that whilst it won’t come as a shock when Apple executives testified they were “shocked” when Samsung debuted its first Galaxy phones, but it surprising, to some at least that it seems Apple were willing to make a deal with its rival.

It has emerged that in October 2010, Apple offered an olive branch to its Korean rival in the form of an offer to license its portfolio of patents, provided the company was willing to pay on the order based on $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet.

The outcome, perhaps unsurprising, was Samsung chose to develop and market their own products, though Apple said a subsequent presentation to Samsung in October 2010 “Samsung chose to embrace and imitate Apple’s iPhone archetype. Apple would have preferred that Samsung request a license to do this in advance. Because Samsung is a strategic supplier to Apple, we are prepared to offer a royalty bearing license for this category of device.”

It is now also apparent that Samsung were offered a further deal by Apple in the form of a 20 per cent discount if Samsung were willing to cross-license its portfolio back to Apple, though Apple were also seeking royalties on Samsung’s non-Android smart phones, most particularly those running the Symbian and Bada operating systems.

In Apple’s estimations, Samsung would have owed Apple approximately $250M, a significant sum, but notably less than Apple was spending on its components. After a period of almost two years, the October 2010 offer was made public on Friday.

This comes in the midst of what has become a titan battle in international courts regarding claim and counter claim of patent rights. As much as two month earlier than the October 2010 offer, in August 2010, Apple had warned Samsung that they believed Samsung had copied their IPhone and was infringing Apple patents.

Apple stated in an August 2010 presentation, “Apple has identified dozens of examples where Android is using or encouraging others to use Apple patented technology. Many more Apple patents are relevant to the Android platform….Apple has not authorized the use of any of these patents”.

The outcome of the October 2010 negotiations are clear to see and as a consequence Apple and Samsung are in the midst of a number of patent battles, most currently, the high profile jury trial taking place in San Jose, California. As well as a ban on some of Samsung’s key products, Apple is seeking as much as $2.5 billion in what they are alleging to be Samsung’s “slavish copy” of their products, namely the iPhone and iPad.

The world market will wait with bated breath regarding this landmark case, with many experts already commenting that a ruling in Apple’s favor would be a blow for consumers as it would not only limit competition but stifle innovation and development by rivals to Apple. We have to wait until we get a verdict on this from the courts so lets keep our fingers crossed.

Samsung and Apple are currently preparing arguments for the upcoming trial and in the midst of all that there are some strong words coming through from both camps. It is Samsung this time, and the company mentioned that Apple wouldn’t have been able to produce an iPhone without using Samsung products or technology. The point that Samsung makes is by far the most aggressive comment we’ve seen come from the Korean manufacturer. Samsung also rightly referred to the components like memory chips and processors that it supplies for the iPhone and the iPad. That is a good point really, but I don’t think it would have been hard for Apple to get these components elsewhere. However, Samsung does make a very strong case with this trial brief. This answer from Samsung came right after Apple claimed that Samsung owed over $2.5 billion in lost profits, royalty damages etc.

Here are a few important points from Samsung’s statement:

For good measure, Apple seeks to exclude Samsung from the market, based on its complaints that Samsung has used the very same public domain design concepts that Apple borrowed from other competitors, including Sony, to develop the iPhone. Apple‘s own internal documents show this. In February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived of, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article that contained an interview of a Sony designer to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others. In the article, the Sony designer discussed Sony portable electronic device designs that lacked “excessive ornamentation” such as buttons, fit in the hand, were “square with a screen” and had “corners [which] have been rounded out.”

Contrary to the image it has cultivated in the popular press, Apple has admitted in internal documents that its strength is not in developing new technologies first, but in successfully commercializing them. . . . Also contrary to Apple‘s accusations, Samsung does not need or want to copy; rather, it strives to best the competition by developing multiple, unique products. Samsung internal documents from 2006, well before the iPhone was announced, show rectangular phones with rounded corners, large displays, flat front faces, and graphic interfaces with icons with grid layouts.

Apple relied heavily on Samsung‘s technology to enter the telecommunications space, and it continues to use Samsung‘s technology to this day in its iPhone and iPad products. For example, Samsung supplies the flash memory, main memory, and application processor for the iPhone. But Apple also uses patented Samsung technology that it has not paid for.

Long before Apple even announced any of its 3G products that use Samsung‘s standards-essential technology, Samsung had offered licenses for these patents (along with other patents) to virtually every major player in the mobile phone industry, successfully striking cross-licensing deals with all of them. After Apple released products that use the technology patented in the [two standards-essential patents at issue in the trial], Samsung similarly offered a cross-licensing deal to Apple, asking for a fair and reasonable royalty in return for Apple‘s use of Samsung‘s technology. Unlike all the major players in the mobile phone industry, however, Apple refused to enter a cross-licensing deal with Samsung.

The points made by Samsung are vital and could go a long way in putting its case forward. While we do not know if these allegations are justified, Samsung has hit out strong at Apple’s camp. Samsung owns a fair share of patents and it is highly likely that Apple would have infringed on some, this is the tech industry after all. It would seem rather strange though that Samsung would wait all these years to claim that Apple refused to pay royalties for its intellectual property. One thing is for sure though, things certainly have gotten heated up over at Apple’s camp now and it will be interesting to see what Apple’s lawyers come up with.

Yesterday we heard that the Sprint Galaxy S III was in the midst of getting a small "security" update over-the-air, but with little detail of what exactly was changed. The jury is still out about any security fixes, but one thing that was changed is that you can no longer use the Google search bar to search for local content on the device. This comes on the heels of yet another legal battle between Apple and Samsung, where the unified search ability was enough to get the Galaxy Nexus on a do-not-sell list for about a week.

Luckily, it's pretty easy to fix by using the Google search bar app from a previous version. If you've received the update and miss your universal search, hit the link below for the AC forums thread for details on getting it back.

Samsung, Sprint, we get it. You were forced to make these changes. But calling it a security update and not filling in your users about the full scope of what was being changed on their phones is dirty pool. We expect, and deserve, a little better.

We go hands-on with the Android 4.0.4 update for the AT&T Galaxy Note, with Samsung Premium Suite

AT&T will soon be pushing out Ice Cream Sandwich for the Samsung Galaxy Note, and we got a chance to have an early look at the update, with it's own Value Pack of features. The Note was (to everyone's surprise) a very popular device, and Samsung has followed in the footsteps of their last popular device's ICS update — leaving the UI much the same as it was with Gingerbread. Like the Galaxy S II, Touchwiz is basically unchanged. Nobody really expected Samsung to change the basic UI on a phone in the midst of it's lifespan, and that's a decision we can understand even if we don't like it very much.

The good news is that we do like it very much. All the features you know and love about the Note are still there, as they were, with the API changes and ability to run the latest apps built-in. Updates to the Google apps and others like Chrome for Android make the Note better, and the ICS features like Android Beam and Face Unlock are along for the ride. If you just can't accept TouchWiz, having ICS allows you to install Nova Launcher to get the stock feel. ICS improves the speed and stability of all the software, and those changes do come with the update.

Along with the ability to run the latest apps and all the under-the-hood changes that come with Android 4.0.4, Samsung has tossed in what they're calling a Value Pack or Premium Suite. Consisting of a revamped S Memo app and the S Note app we've seen and heard was coming to Samsung's future tablets, it's two great pieces of software that you won't be calling bloat. S Memo's great home screen widget make it an app that's easy to use when you need to jot something down quickly, and the extra power that comes with S Note make it one of the best note taking apps we've run across. Check it out in the video and gallery after the break.